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Patriotic Poems and Addresses 
jflong the Hudson 



By 

Wallace Bruce 



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GENERAL GRANT'S TOMB. 



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PATRIOTIC POEMS AND ADDRESSES 
ALONG THE HUDSON 



BY 

WALLACE BRUCE 



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\^' COLLECTED AND ARRANGED 

BY 

JOHN D^ROSS, LL.D., 

AUTHOR OF "A CLUSTER OF POETS," "SCOTTISH POETS 

IN AMERICA," "SKETCHES ON RANDOM 

SUBJECTS," ETC. 



BRYANT LITERARY UNION, 

NEW YORK. 

1897. 



\j^O%W^^''^ 






Copyright, 1897, by 
Bryant Literary Union. 



PRESS OF A. V. HAIGHT. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Preface. 

At Grant's Tomb, .... 7 

Bend Low, ...... 9 

The Flag, ..... 12 

At the Grave of General Dix. 

Decoration Day, . . . . .17 

Academy of Music, New York. 

The Story of a Pension, ... 20 

Yonkers. 

American Characteristics, . . . -23 

Tarrytown. 

The Power of National Song, . . 28 

Haverstraw. 

Tribute to Lincoln, . . . . -32 

Peekskill. 

Yorktown, "?.... 36 

Before an Address at West Point. 

The Long Drama, . . . . .40 

Centennial at Newburgh. 



I 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

The Forest Ballot, .... 48 

Fishkill. 

A Royal Route, . . . . .51 

Poughkeepsie. 

Love of Country, .... 56 

Poughkeepsie. 

Our Nation Forever, . . . .60 

Rondout. 

On Guard, ..... 62 

Tivoli. 

Our Prayer To-Day, . . . .66 

Saugerties. 

"Veterans," ..... 69 

Hudson. 

Parson Allen's Ride, . . . -74 

Albany. 

The Course of Freedom, ... 78 

Troy. 

The Candle Parade, . . . .80 

Saratoga Springs. 

The Silent Soldier, . . . . 94, 

Mount MacGregor. 



PREFACE. 

For many years it has been my custom 
to make clippings of Addresses and Poems 
delivered from time to time by our orators 
and poets, and among these to cherish elo- 
quent selections and graceful incidents of 
Wallace Bruce. 

His recent verses ''Bend Low," warmly 
received and widely copied throughout the 
entire country, suggested to me the publi- 
cation in convenient form of the following 
popular poems and prose extracts which I 
have preserved from his various patriotic 
utterances along the Hudson. 



PREFACE. 

In response to this idea I was gratified 
to receive his permission to arrange the 
same in consecutive order of towns and 
cities where they have been delivered, thereby- 
attaining pleasant companionship through 
the beautiful valley he so much loves, and 
where he has won golden opinions, from the 
Island of Manhattan to Mount MacGregor at 
Saratoga. 

JOHN D. ROSS. 



AT GRANT'S TOMB. 

[From the Christian Advocate.'] 

With the departure of the President the 
multitttde of spectators bega?i to melt azvay^ 
but the long columyi still co7itinued to move past 
the tonib^ a7id it ivas not until the sun was 
about to set behi?id the Nezv Jersey hills that 
the end of the splendid pageant disappeared 
down the almost deserted drive., and the 
tomb with its precious dust was enshrouded 
in the silence of the approaching flight. The 
spirit of the occasion is fittingly characterized 
i7i a poem written by Wallace Bruce., and 
read by him the evening before the dedication 
at a meeting of the U. S. Grant Post of the 
Grand Army of the Republic, 



Those stars are there in setting blue, 
Because you answered to the call; 

We bring no eulogy to you — 
You honor us — you won it all. 



i 



BEND LOW. 

Dedicated to The Grant Post, Brooklyn, N. Y., whose 

Guard of Honor stood sentry around 

the General's Grave. 

Bend low beside the Soldier's grave, 

His ashes lift with reverent hand, 
Hark to the voice again that gave 

To Liberty supreme command! 
Bend low, brave comrades of the past. 

Your garlands strew with moistened eyes, 
While angel fingers fondly cast 

Sweet amaranths from waiting skies! 
9 



BEND LOW. 

Bend low ! The world respondeth now 

To echoes from the far away; 
Columbia, with uncovered brow, 

A heartfelt offering brings to-day. 
Bend low as veteran lips renew 

The glow and throb of burning years; 
A people pass in long review 

To pay the homage of their tears. 



Bend low! O'er yonder Palisades 

The darkling shadows gently creep; 
Bend low while gathering twihght fades 

And starry pickets guard his sleep; 
His tomb the Nation's heart for aye 

Reflecting Freedom's fairest beam. 
As morning blue and evening gray 

Become the sentries of his dream. 



BEND LOW. 

Bend low beneath that message fraught 

With prophecy to all the world: — 
^' Let us have Peace," divinely wrought 

In bannered folds of love unfurled; 
His glory as the centuries wide, 

His honor bright as sunlit seas, 
His lullaby the Hudson tide, 

His requiem the whispering breeze. 



II 



THE FLAG. 

AT THE GRAVE OF GEN. DIX. 

Decoration Day Tribute at Trinity Cemetery, 
near Washington Heights. 

Dedicated to the John A. Dix Post. 

The only factor in the integral of God's sov- 
ereignty is the individual; the only factor in the 
multiple of this great nation is the unit. There 
were nineteen families in the Mayflower — an indi- 
visible number. There were thirteen stripes and 
thirteen stars in the old flag, indivisible from its 
birth. If any man individually wishes to secede, 
he can come and go at his pleasure. Blackstone 
defines liberty as the right of locomotion; but no 
man or body of men can walk off with twenty 
square feet of the sacred soil of old Virginia or 

12 



THE FLAG. 

a quarter of a school district in Massachusetts. 
That question has been decided once and forever. 

The serpent of State sovereignty that found its 
way into the Paradise of our new Repubhc, and 
coiled itself Laocoonlike around the limbs of the 
young nation, has been consigned to a deeper Pan- 
demoniun than dreamed of by Dante or Milton. 

The power and supremacy of the flag have been 
estabHshed — the enduring symbol of the nation's 
authority; and I have great respect for the 
home-rearing of that little boy who, when asked 
in Sunday-School, which was the best verse in the 
Bible, replied, " If any man attempts to haul down 
the American flag shoot him on the spot." His 
home-training for American citizenship had not 
been neglected, and his Apocryphal verse, printed 
in bold type, would not injure a leaf of any 
volume of Holy Writ. 

You remember how General Dix, who had been 
Secretary of War only eleven days, sent out that 

13 



THE FLAG, 

glorious message, the first to thrill the Northern 
heart. In that sentence, the flag became America ! 
Ten thousand men might have been shot down in 
the streets of cities in revolt, and some excuse 
been devised to cover the crime; but when the 
Flag was assailed, the people of the North came 
like a great avalanche, increasing as it swept, until 
two million brave men went to the front in the 
cause of Liberty. 

We stand here to-day, men and women of a 
great RepubHc, crowned with the greatest free- 
dom. Do we know how to appreciate its value ? 
Some of you here gathered know what it cost. 
Count it not in the cold figures of arithmetic 
or in the value of the individual man in the 
world's commerce. 

By the vacant chairs at so many firesides, by 
the privations, by the heart agony, by the sleep- 
less nights and long vigils, by the deeds and 
sufferings of heroic women, by the tears of mother, 



THE FLAG. 

wife and sister, by the bowed head of the gray- 
haired man from whom went forth the joy and 
support of his dedining years, by the great army 
of martyrs, by the brave women who laid down 
their lives in fever hospitals, and in the presence 
of that God who listens to the cry of the raven, 
ay, " caters, providentially for the sparrow," tell 
me, if you can, the price of yonder symbol ? 

The offerings that we bring fade away and perish, 
but the glory you won is immortal. No wonder 
in the midst of these Providences that the whole 
land, from the pines of Maine to the forests of the 
Sierras, on days like these, wakes to the reveille 
of the morning stars, and brings its offerings to the 
dead soldiers until night stations her starry pickets 
above their graves. 

Brave boys are they! gone at their country's 
call! How the old songs come back, and eyes 
grow dim. Their hands are waiting to clasp yours 
as of old, and their lips to ask what of the Great 

15 



THE FLAG. 

Republic for which they died. As one by one 
you go to join the heroic throng, gathering for the 
last great muster, take this message, " We have one 
country, one people, free and united, from gulf to 
lake, from sea to sea." 



i6 



DECORATION DAY. 

At the Acadejny of Music, New York. 

We deck to-day each soldier's grave, 
We come with offerings pure and white 

To bind the brows of those who gave 
Their all to keep our honor bright. 

We cannot pay the debt we owe; 

They gave their lives that we might live ; 
Our warmest words fall far below 

The worship that we fain would give. 

O country! fairest of the free; 

Columbia! — name forever blest; 
O lost "Atlantis" of the sea! 

Securely anchored in the West; 

17 



DECORA TION DA V. 

Unfold the flag their hands have borne ! 

The shreds of many a well - fought field ; 
The stripes alone are rent and torn, 

The stars are there, our sacred shield. 

Those stars are ours because they died, 
The blue is dearer for their sake, 

Who sleep on many a green hill -side. 
In ranks that nevermore will break. 

For well they wore the color true 
That holds our constellation fair. 

And evermore the " Boys in Blue " 
Shall have a day of rest and prayer. 

Yes, martyred heroes of the free! 

We kneel beside your mounds and pray 
That God our nation's guard may be 

And comrade's hope from day to day. 



DECORA TION DA Y. 

O day baptized in blood and tears! 

The blood was theirs, the tears are ours ; 
And children's children through the years 

Shall strew their graves with sweetest flowers. 

And May -day garlands all in bloom 
Will quicken other verse than mine, 

And decorate the soldier's tomb 

From Southern palm to Northern pine. 



19 



THE STORY OF A PENSION. 

Decoratzoji Day Address at Yonkers. 

A few years ago a woman came to the United 
States Consulate at Edinburgh. She said while she 
was a lassie, and working at a mill in Galashiels, 
there came a soldier one day wearing a blue coat 
with brass buttons, who had many incidents to 
narrate of the hardships and heroisms of our civil 
war. She had read the stoiy of Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, and knew it by heart; she could recite 
the poetiy of Whittier, which she thought chimed 
so sweetly with the songs of Robert Burns. He 
told the story of his life and won her. 

They lived happily in Edinburgh, until finally, 
from sickness contracted in the war he applied 
to the American Government for a pension. For 



THE STORY OF A PENSION. 

foui" years he waited, as the papers came back 
again and again with new questions, till at last 
he lay down for two years on a sick bed. His 
wife and oldest daughter went forth and worked 
for twenty cents a day, and brought home what 
they could for the poor, sick sufferer. The doc- 
tor at last told him that his end was near, and 
he said, " Doctor, I have little to give you, 
except the gun by my bedside." The kind physician 
said, " I don't want it ; it is my business, you know, 
to heal wounds, not to make them, and I will not 
charge you anything for my attention." The wife 
spoke up and said, "We will keep the gun for the 
poor laddie." The next day, when they turned 
down the coverhd for the last time, they found he 
had placed the gun by his side, holding it lovingly 
against his heart. 

So she came and asked for her pension; she 
had a right to it as the widow of an old soldier. 
When at last it arrived she said with tears in her 



THE STORY OF A PENSION. 

eyes, "Oh, if Johnnie could have had it before 
he died." I asked, "Where is he buried; can we 
go there on Decoration Day?" And she said, 
" It is in a Potter's Field ; four others have already 
been buried above him, and it is unmarked." I 
said to her, " If I live to go to America, I will 
find sixty men who will give me $ioo each; and 
we will have in the midst of old Edinburgh a plot 
of ground for the Scottish - American soldiers." 
I went before the Town Council of Edinburgh 
and they granted me a site near the Monu- 
ment of the People dedicated to personal free- 
dom. I had an American sculptor design a statue 
of " Lincoln Freeing the Slave," to commemorate 
their deeds, and carved thereon his immortal sen- 
tence, dear to every heart: "To preserve the Jewel 
of Liberty in the Framework of Freedom." 



22 



AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 

An Address at Tarrytoivn. 

The principal traits of the American are straight- 
forwardness, self-reHance, and readiness to meet 
emergencies. In a new country Hke ours people 
are not given to overmuch ceremony. They have 
the good old custom of going across lots; they 
are impatient of fences and old forms; they take 
the nearest way. 

When the authorities of Alexandria forbade the 
American captain to take down the obelisk, which 
had been presented to New York by the Khedive 
of Egypt, he simply wrapped the American flag 
around it and told his men to proceed. The stripes 
of that flag were not the sort of red tape that the 
worthy officials of Alexandria were accustomed to, 

23 



AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 

but no man dared say him nay. That readiness of 
action revealed his ancestry. 

When a certain general, less noted for victories 
than delays, telegraphed to President Lincoln, " I 
have captured one hundred cows. What shall I 
do with them ? " the answer consisted of just two 
words — "milk them." The midnight dispatch of 
Anthony Wayne to General Washington read : 
" Stony Point, two o'clock A. M. Dear General, 
the American flag waves here. Mad Anthony." 
A dispatch from General Putnam read : " Nathan 
Palmer was taken as a spy, tried as a spy, and will 
be hanged as a spy. P. S. — He is hanged." When 
John Hancock said to the delegates assembled 
at Philadelphia to discuss the Declaration of 
Independence, "Gentlemen, we must all hang 
together." "Yes," said Franklin, "or we will all 
hang separately." 

It is sometimes observed that we have not yet 
developed a distinctive American literature; but I 
24 



AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 

believe that no one denies the original flavor of 
American humor. When a gentleman from Duluth 
told the EngHsh traveler that England was a very 
good country, but we could put the whole of 
it into Lake Superior without raising the tide, 
no one could accuse him of plagiarism. When a 
group of gentlemen on shipboard were discussing 
the merits of Vesuvius, and one of the party said, 
" Bring over your Vesuvius, and we will turn on 
Niagara Falls and put it out," it was unnecessary 
to say that the speaker was an American. In a 
word, there is no cynicism about American humor, 
but exaggeration, a sense of room and assurance, 
qualities naturally belonging to a great country, 
unfenced, untilled, and of boundless resources. 

We too often regard the American Revolution as 
the initial point of our national life ; but we must 
not forget that the great men of the Revolution 
were the outgrowth of fifty years of self-rehance. 
They were the descendants of men reared in hard- 

25 



AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 

ship, of men who carried the Psalms in one 
hand and the musket in the other. That band 
of patriots who signed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence did not spring up by enchantment. 
That handful of Puritan acorns, shook by the 
hand of oppression from the topmost bough of 
the tree of English liberty, deep-rooted on the 
banks of Runnymede, shipped without bill of 
lading in the Mayflower, dropped in the rocky 
soil of New England, neglected and uncared 
for, became in a century and a half full grown 
oaks. 

If ever in the world's history the words "native 
mettle " could be applied to any band of men 
it belongs to the men of 1776. Every field 
from Bunker Hill to Saratoga and Yorktown 
revealed the courage and endiu^ance of Saxon 
blood. Ay, more, in our naval conflicts and in 
that great struggle, in the memory of many here 
gathered, we recognize the qualities which in- 
26 



AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 

spired the witty toast of the young American 
fifty years ago in Paris, who, after the rose, the 
Hly, the thistle and the shamrock had been 
extolled, while his own land had been reduced to 
an afterthought, responded : 

" The lily will fade and its leaves decay, 
The rose from its stem dissever, 
The thistle and shamrock will pass away, 
But the stars shall shine forever." 



27 



THE POWER OF NATIONAL SONG. 

Fro77i afi Address at Have7'straw. 

The ^draught of kindness may sparkle with joy 
but there are tears in the bottom of the cup. Yes, 
to all of us it speaks of the past ; for many who 
were with us, as it were but yesterday, are now 
separated by oceans, some by death. Some who 
went forth with energy and in the strength of man- 
hood to plough furrows of thought through the 
world, are now sleeping in furrows ploughed deep 
by cannon-balls — the loved and the lost of our 
" auld lang syne." But in these lines they all are 
remembered, although many sleep without a monu- 
ment along that tract of country where the fierce 
fire of battle succeeded i?i weldmg a broken union. 
Songs which thus find a response in the universal 
28 



THE POWER OF NATIONAL SONG. 

heart of humanity, Hke those which stir the blood 
of a nation, have an influence which cannot be 
measured. Mechanism will give you the force of 
an engine, the strength of a bridge, or the tension 
of a cable, but it is impossible to determine the 
power of an idea which takes hold of the heart 
and rises to the lips of a nation ; and old Fletcher 
said well, " Let me -wTite the songs of a people, 
and I care not who make her laws." In the 
Reformation of Germany, the songs of the Father- 
land went hand in hand with the theses of Luther 
nailed upon the Cathedral doors at Wittenberg. 
When Knox was driven from his country, the 
poems of Lyndsay of the Mount were working 
out his deliverance and the cause of truth. The 
last Napoleon prohibited years ago the singing of 
the " Marseillaise Hymn " in the streets of Paris. 
He knew if that song were raised in the cause 
of truth, it were mightier than an army with ban- 
ners. He was literally afraid of that grand stir- 
29 



THE POWER OF NATIONAL SONG. 

ring chorus, " Marchons, Marchez ! " and when I 
heard it in the dark summer of 1870, as it rose 
up from the heart of an excited nation bursting 
its fetters of law, and saw the soldiery kneel as 
they sang it around the tri-colored flag which had 
led to so many fields of victory, I thought that if 
France were only united, rallying around that 
song, she could withstand the Powers of Europe. 
Yes, from the invasion of Wilham of Normandy, 
when Taillifer the minstrel advanced before the 
army animating them with songs of Charlemagne 
and Roland, and then rushed among the opposing 
ranks and perished, until the yesterday of 

"Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," 

the influence of national songs cannot be meas- 
ured. The poets who have written them may 
have died in poverty or in exile. They may 
have suff^ered martyrdom at the stake or at the 
bar of public opinion; but their lines live, the 

30 



THE PO WER OF NA TIONAL SONG. 

monument of their exile and the crown of their 
martyrdom. You may bum the writer, but the 
fire only melts the links of tyranny. A true poet 
cannot be a slave. He feels deeply, and liberty 
is his inspiration. He knows there is an honor 
more sacred than law, a natural veneration more 
effective than enacted statutes. National honor 
is stronger than political bulwarks. This is the 
boundary of a Divine Providence. Political bul- 
warks are often the mere mud-dykes of a genera- 
tion. 



31 



TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 

Address at Peeks kill. 

We have no primogeniture of greatness, but what 
we might term a natural succession or heredity of 
wit. Not only that wit which says the right thing 
at the right time, but also does the right thing at 
the right moment. I take it that Abraham Lin- 
coln is the natural descendant of Benjamin Frank- 
lin. They both were emphatically the architects of 
their own fortunes. They sprang from the com- 
mon mass, inheriting and retaining the quahties of 
the people — hospitality, fideHty, sympathy and com- 
mon sense. The sayings of each are national 
proverbs. "It is'nt safe to swap horses while 
crossing the stream " was the closing sentence of 
Lincoln's address accepting renomination, and that 
one sentence was worth a hundred thousand cam- 
paign speeches. 

32 



TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 

On his way to assist at the dedication of the 
National Cemetery and Monument at Gettysburg 
he unfolded a newspaper, and, pointing to five long 
closely printed columns, said to a friend : " Here 
is the speech of Edward Everett, which he is to 
deliver to-day, already in type." Then, taking from 
his vest-pocket a torn yellow official envelope, 
written with pencil, and marked with erasures, he 
said: '' Here is mine." The speech of the great 
Massachusett's orator has become the property of 
mouldy scrap-books, but the pencilled sentences on 
the torn yellow envelope will live in the American 
heart as long as the stars shine in the sky. '* It 
is not what we say here, but what they did here." 
His detractors called him rude and uncouth, and 
the London newspapers, forsooth, said that we 
had elected a mountebank for President. 

In the age of Pericles two statues were made 
by rival sculptors. The one that received the ap- 
proval of the people was to be placed on high 



TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 

in their temple. The statues were unveiled; one 
received the plaudits, the other the derision of the 
assembly. '•'■ Lift it to its place," said the unsuc- 
cessful sculptor. The approved statue was lifted; 
the lines of beauty were all gone. '' Lift mine," 
As the great statue reached the lofty pedestal a 
shout burst from the excited throng. So seemed 
the rugged quahties of that noble man Hfted to 
the proudest pinnacle of a nation's love. 

When I think of the detractors of men like 
Lincoln I am somehow reminded of Mark Twain's 
description of the Sphynx in his " Innocence 
Abroad;" that grand image of retrospection and 
memory, gazing out over the ocean of time, a 
great statue, sixty feet high, one hundred and 
twenty-five feet long, carved out of a solid block 
of stone, harder than iron. He heard, you re- 
member, the clink of a hammer, and there, way 
up on the cheek of the Sphynx, saw something re- 
sembling a wart. "It seems," he said, "that one 

34 



TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 

of our well-meaning reptiles, a relic hunter, had 
crawled up there, and was trying to break off a 
specimen; but the great image, unconscious of 
the small insect that was fretting the granite in 
vain, was contemplating the ages as calmly as 
ever." Lincoln's detractors and critics are all gone. 
The lines in Punch over the plain coffin at 
Springfield confessed at last that he had Hved to 
shame them from their sneer : 

" Our shallow judgments we have learned to rue, 
Noting how to occasion's height he rose : 
How his quaint wit made home truth seem more true, 
How iron -like his temper grew by blows." 

Ay, a tower has been erected to his memory in 
London, a monument in Edinburgh. The streets 
of Italian cities have been named in his honor; 
his portrait hangs in the humble cottages of the 
Sudss mountaineer, and his name is affectionately 
remembered in the hearts of the oppressed all 
over the world. 

35 



YORKTOWN. 

Prefacing a Lecture at West Point. 
To the Memory of John Bruce, Sergeant at Lexington. 

We stand to-day on Yorktown field, 
Where Britain laid her banner down, 

Where tyranny to freedom kneeled, 
And dropped the jewels from her crown. 

We gather here from every land. 

With offerings brought from near and far, 

Like men of old — the Eastern band — 
Led onward by the Western star. 

We meet around an humble shrine. 
We mark the spot with graven stone, 

A trophy to that Right Divine 

Whereby to manhood we have grown. 

36 



YORKTO WN. 

Our hundred years of youth have passed, 
With deeds that prove the Nation brave, 

And strife and jealousy at last 
Lie buried in one common grave. 

One flag floats over all the land, 
One sentiment thrills every heart; 

No foreign foe, no factious band. 
The land we love shall ever part. 

The past is sure, the future waits; 

The years with enterprise are rife; 
With hope the century celebrates 

The birthday of a nation's life. 

We measure time by glorious deeds; 

All history is simply this : 
It skips the years; it merely reads 

From Marathon to Salamis. 

37 



YORKTO WN. 

We gather courage from the past, 
And from heroic pages learn : 

Triumphant freedom finds at last 
A Runnymede or Bannockburn. 

Ay, every struggle to be free 

'Gainst courtly craft and regal might. 

Preserves the Hne of liberty. 

And keeps her armor clean and bright. 

The sceptre and the diadem 

In ev'ry land shall lose their power. 

Freedom's the only flawless gem. 
And equal rights the people's dower. 

The diamond in the monarch's crown 
Is crystallized from peasants' tears; 

The purple of his royal gown 
Betokens blood of bitter years. 

38 



YORKTO WN. 

The scaffold stairs which Sidney trod 
Led from the dungeon to the sky; 

The tyrant sways a feeble rod 

When patriots dare to do and die. 

Grander the manger than the throne; 

''Free hearts and hands," the poet sings; 
Freedom and faith and these alone, 

"The grace of God," but not of kings. 



39 



THE LONG DRAMA. 

Read at the Centennial of the Disbanding of the 
American Army, Newburgh, N. Y. 

With banners bright, with roll of drums, 
With pride and pomp and civic state, 

A nation, born of courage, comes 
The closing act to celebrate. 

We've traced the drama page by page 
From Lexington to Yorktown field; 

The curtain drops upon the stage. 
The century's book to-day is sealed. 

A cycle grand — with wonders fraught 
That triumph over time and space — 

In woven steel its dreams are wrought, 
The nations whisper face to face. 

40 



THE LONG DRAMA. 

But in the proud and onward march 
We halt an hour for dress parade, 

Remembering that fair freedom's arch 
Springs from the base our fathers laid. 

With cheeks aglow with patriot iire 
They pass in long review again; 

We grasp the hand of noble sire 

Who made two words of " Noblemen." 

In silence now the tattered band — 
Heroes in homespun worn and gray — 

Around the old Headquarters stand, 
As in that dark, uncertain day. 

That low -roofed dwelling shelters still 
The phantom tenants of the past; 

Each garret beam, each oaken sill. 
Treasures and holds their memories fast. 

41 



V 



THE LONG DRAMA. 

Ay, humble walls! the manger -birth 
To emphasize this truth was given : 

The noblest deeds are nearest earth, 
The lowliest roofs are nearest heaven. 

We hear the anthem once again — 

" No king but God ! " — to guide oui- way, 

Like that of old — " Good- will to men " — 
Unto the shrine where freedom lay. 

One window looking toward the east; 

Seven doors wide - open every side ; 
That room revered proclaims at least 

An invitation free and wide. 

Wayne, Putnam, Knox, and Heath are there; 

Steuben, proud Prussia's honored son ; 
Brave Lafayette from France the fair, 

And, chief of all, our Washington. 
42 



THE LONG DRAMA. 

Serene and calm in peril's hour, 
An honest man without pretence, 

He stands supreme to teach the power 
And brilliancy of common - sense. 

Alike disdaining fraud and art. 

He blended love with stem command; 
He bore his country in his heart. 

He held his army by the hand. 

Hush! carping critic, read aright 
The record of his fair renown : 

A leader by diviner right 

Than he who wore the British crown. 

With silvered locks and eyes grown dim, 
As victory's sun proclaimed the mom. 

He pushed aside the diadem 

With stem rebuke and patriot scom. 

43 



THE LONG DRAMA. 

He quells the half -paid mutineers, 
And binds them closer to the cause; 

His presence turns their wrath to tears, 
Their muttered threats to loud applause. 

The great republic had its birth' 

That hour beneath the army's wing, 

Whose leader taught by native worth 
The man is grander than the king. 

The stars on that bright azure field, 
Which proudly wave o'er land and sea. 

Were fitly taken from his shield 
To be our common heraldry. 

We need no trappings worn and old. 
No courtly lineage to invoke. 

No tinselled plate, but soHd gold. 
No thin veneer, but heart of oak. 

44 



THE LONG DRAMA. 

No aping after foreign ways 

Becomes a son of noble sire; 
Columbia wins the sweetest praise 

When clad in simple, plain attire. 

In science, poesy, and art, 

We ask the best the world can give ; 

We feel the throb of Britain's heart, 

And will while Burns and Shakespeare live. 

But, oh ! the nation is too great 
To borrow emptiness and pride : 

The queenly Hudson wears in state 
Her robes with native pigments dyed. 

October hfts with colors bright 
Its mountain canvas to the sky; 

The crimson trees, aglow with hght, 
Unto oiu- banners wave reply. 

45 



THE LONG DRAMA. 

Like Horeb's bush the leaves repeat 
From lips of flame with glory crowned 

^' Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, 
The place they trod is holy ground." 

O fairest stream beneath the sun ! 

Thy Highland portal was the key 
Which force and treason wellnigh won, 

Like that of famed Thermopylae. 

That ridge along our eastern coast, 
From Carolina to the Sound, 

Opposed its front to Britain's host, 

And heroes at each pass were found — 

A vast primeval pahsade, 

With bastions bold and wooded crest, 
A bulwark strong by nature made 

To guard the valley of the West. 
46 



THE LONG DRAMA. 

Along its heights the beacons gleamed; 

It formed the nation's battle -line, 
Firm as the rocks and cliffs where dreamed 

The soldier -seers of Palestine. 

These hills shall keep their memory sure, 
The blocks we rear shall fall away. 

The mountain fastnesses endure. 

And speak their glorious deeds for aye. 

And oh ! while morning's golden urn 
Pours amber light o'er purple brim, 

And rosy peaks like rubies bum 
Around the emerald valley's rim, 

So long preserve our hearthstone warm ! 

Our reverence, O God, increase ! 
And let the glad centennials form 

One long millennial of peace. 

47 



THE FOREST BALLOT. 

Before ati Address at Fishkill. 

When the trees their ballots cast, 
And the forests all are polled, 

Which will win the suffrage vast — 
Crimson leaves or leaves of gold ? 



In the radiant autumn days. 

Silently on hill and wold. 
Through the amber-tinted haze, 

Fall the leaves of red and gold — 

Leaves that keep the cruel stain 
Of the blood of brothers dead, 

Symbols of a nation's pain : 

Count them sadly — leaves of red; 
48 



THE FOREST BALLOT. 

Leaves that hold the mellow light 
Of the stars on banner-fold, 

Symbols of enduring right: 

Count them gladly — leaves of gold ; 

Emblems those of dire defeat, 
Emblems these of courage bold; 

Which will triumph, which is meet — 
Crimson leaves or leaves of gold ? 

By the record of the past. 
By that story proudly told, 

By fair freedom won at last, 
Crimson yields to leaves of gold. 

By the faith that conquers doubt. 
Right will triumph as of old. 

See ! The red is fading out. 
Clearer glow the tints of gold. 

49 



THE FOREST BALLOT 

So, when all the leaves are cast, 
And the forest vote is polled. 

With a suffrage wide and vast 
Victory crowns the leaves of gold. 



50 



A ROYAL ROUTE. 

FROM GETTYSBURG TO ATLANTA FROM ATLANTA TO 

THE SEA. 

Reunion of the One Hundred and Fiftieth 
New York Regimettt at Poughkeepsie. 

Dedicated to its first Colonel, Gen. John H. Ketcham. 

Gay-bannered streets a greeting speak, 
And standards bright with storied name; 

While moistened eye and burning cheek 
Unite proud welcome to proclaim. 

But waving plumes are symbols cold 

To voice what Dutchess here would say — 

And speech is silver, silence gold, 

When memories o'er our heartstrings play. 

51 



A ROYAL ROUTE. 

The same rich glory floods the land, 

October flings her colors out, 
As when your noble, loyal band 

Went forth upon its royal route; 

To bear yon flag, which loved ones gave, 
Through forest, plain, and mountains vast; 

Our father's heritage to save, 

To keep fair freedom's title fast — 

At Gettysbiu-g, where fate and fame 

Three days the wreath of victory tossed 

From hill to hill through battery-flame, 

From line to line where courage crossed — 

In Tennessee, where Lookout Height 
With thunder-tone revealed the law, 

A cloud-wreathed Sinai, clad with might — 
Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw — 

52 



A ROYAL ROUTE. 

And nameless fields where valor led, 
As Hooker blazed his southward way, 

Till Allatoona heard the tread 

Of Sherman's troops that came to stay. 

I've walked those rugged mountain ways 
Where echoes sleep 'mid tranquil joys; 

Have waked the hills with notes of praise, 
And touched my hat to " Ketcham's Boys." 

Have marked the fields whereon they stood, 
With pride for Dutchess, tried and true, 

And deemed each spot a holy rood, 
Made sacred by the Boys in Blue. 

O grand old Twentieth Army Corps! 

Our hearts go out to thee and thine — 
Seven thousand reached Atlanta's door 

Of seventeen thousand men in line. 

53 



A ROYAL ROUTE. 

Dark, cruel days! Ten thousand lost! 

Engulfed in war's encrimsoned tide; 
A fearful price ! but worth the cost — 

The land is free for which they died. 

Then who would grudge to men like these 
The pensioned pittance of a crust? 

Strike down yon flag that flaunts the breeze, 
And all your wealth is glittering dust. 

A land with honor gone is naught, 
The people want no huckstering cry; 

Too rich the realm for which they fought 
To let her brave defenders die. 

The wires are cut. The army swings 

Through seas of pine from moorings free; 

With Slocum now the Twentieth sings 
The March through Georgia to the Sea. 

54 



A ROYAL ROUTE. 

And so the deep, proud chorus swells 
From north to south through all the land- 

A symphony of golden bells 

Swung by the Great Director's hand; 

Till every state from east to west 

Takes up Columbia's glorious chant — 

Faith, freedom, hope, and truth abreast — 
With grand crescendo under Grant. 



55 



LOVE OF COUNTRY. 

DECORATION DAY SERVICE. 
At Hamilton Post Poughkeepsie. 

The safeguard of a government is not in its 
armories. It is rather in the love of country. 
We have a right to love our city and its institu- 
tions; a right to be proud of our colleges and 
schools ; a right to speak of the taste and cul- 
ture of this, the fair city of the Empire State. 

You, gentlemen, in taking the name of your 
Post did not have to go outside of this city to 
find one of the noblest, one of the worthiest 
names in our American History — the name of 
Hamilton. It was fitting. Veterans of Poughkeep- 
sie, ay, for many reasons, that you should have 

56 



LOVE OF COUNTRY, 

selected this name. It not only takes us back 
to the day when the Constitution of the United 
States was ratified in the city of Poughkeepsie 
by the argument and zeal of Alexander Hamil- 
ton, but it binds together three generations of 
heroes. You take your name from the heroic 
grandson, who rests to-day beneath the roses 
and the tears of a nation's gratitude; but the 
middle link of that illustrious chain, at once son 
and sire, still remains to us — our respected citi- 
zen, Hon. Philip Hamilton, who was with us in 
our procession, and stood uncovered during these 
impressive exercises. It is indeed our privilege to 
love Poughkeepsie, and refer with pride to her 
illustrious names. 

We have a right to revere the County of 
Dutchess; to love the great State of New York, 
appropriately titled the Empire State, with its well 
deserved motto *' Excelsior;" we have a right to 
be proud of a commonwealth which contains within 

57 



LOVE OF COUNTRY. 

its borders one -tenth of the population of this 
great land. Look at its glorious framework and 
picture : 

The Hudson, not only punctuated with beauty, 
but also with historic names and dramatic inci- 
dents from the sea to the wilderness. Behold 
Stony Point and West Point and Newburgh; 
Stillwater, Saratoga and Bemis Heights; Lake 
George, with its history and its scenery, and 
Lake Champlain, with its blended record of 1776 
and of 181 2. We have on the north the Thou- 
sand Islands and the Rapids of the St. Lawrence, 
and Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie, whose waters 
seem to speak the power and grandeur of the 
"Great West," in the falls of Niagara; to the 
south we find the valley of the Wyoming and 
the beautiful Delaware Water Gap. What a grand 
framework it is ! Well, now for the picture. We 
see the Catskills and the Adirondacks, and Otsego 
Lake, where Cooper Hved, and the placid valley 

58 



LOVE OF COUNTRY. 

"where the Mohawk gently ghdes;" we see Wat- 
kins Glen, the beautiful cascades around the 
modem Ithaca, the falls of the Genesee, and the 
garden land about Rochester. Ay, this is a grand 
State. We have a right to love it with its majestic 
framework and superb picture. But how idle to 
stop here, when we think of the grand extent of 
this glorious country united forever in the bonds 
of peace. I recall the speech of a great orator, 
Dr. Chapin, at Hudson, N. Y., during the days 
of the Civil War. He referred to the silver lakes 
of the north, the rockbound Atlantic, the golden 
sands of the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico. 
Then stepping forward from the lecture desk, 
he exclaimed: "This grand and glorious wedding 
ring of our Fathers, with the tomb of Washing- 
ton for a signet." 



59 



OUR NATION FOREVER. 
Preluding an Address at Ro7idout. 

Ring out to the stars the glad chorus! 

Let bells in sweet melody chime; 
Ring out to the sky bending o'er us 

The chant of a nation sublime : 
One land with a history glorious ! 
One God and one faith all victorious. 

The songs of the camp-fires are blended, 
The North and the South are no more; 

The conflict forever is ended, 

From the lakes to the palm -girded shore. 

One people united forever 

In hope greets the promising years; 
No discord again can dissever 

A Union cemented by tears. 
60 



OUR NATION FOREVER. 

The past will retain but one story — 
A record of courage and love; 

The future shall cherish one glory^, 

While the stars shine responsive above. 

With emotions of pride and of sorrow, 
Bring roses and lihes to-day; 

In the dawn of the nation's to-morrow 
We garland the Blue and the Gray. 

One land with a history glorious! 

One God and one faith all victorious! 



6i 



ON GUARD. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH NEW YORK 
REGIMENT AT GETTYSBURG. 

Recited at a Sabbath Decoration Day Address 
at Tivoli. 

We can not consecrate this field, 

Or hallow ground where heroes stood; 

Thus spoke the man whose words have sealed 
Our lips in Freedom's Holy Rood. 

We can not dedicate. Too well 

Our Lincoln knew the Temple's cost, 

He heard the nation's anthem swell : 
Your deeds survive, our words are lost. 
62 



ON GUARD. 

The brave men living and the dead, 
Who wrought the epic of the free, 

Have consecrated here, he said. 
The land, the world, to liberty. 

And now amid the whirling years 
That punctuate the swift decades. 

You come with blended joy and tears. 
In peace beneath the gathering shades, 

To contemplate from hill to hill 

The line you held those bitter days, 

Again to feel your pulses thrill, 

Once more to take your meed of praise; 

With noble monument to mark 

The spot where Dutchess, tried and true, 
Stood by the faith when skies were dark. 

And stars were blotted from the blue; 

63 



ON GUARD. 

A picket outpost here for aye 

With watchword of the Hudson bom, 

To note the moonlight shadows play, 
To greet with joy the early morn ; 

A silent sentinel to keep 

Its post along the quiet line; 

A Bannockbiurn, where brothers sleep — 
A Waterloo, where roses twine. 

Ay, Gettysburg, thy name at last 
Proclaims the triumph of the race; 

'Tis here the future greets the past. 
And faith asserts her crowning grace. 

No other battle-field like thine. 

Where love joins hands across the way. 

One flag, one land, a sacred shrine 
Alike unto the Blue and Gray. 

64 



ON GUARD. 

Then rear the graven stone with pride 
Along the hne where freedom's van 

Proclaims to generations wide 
The final victory of man : 

That love and law will reign supreme 
Where'er the starry banner waves, 

When stones that now in sunlight gleam 
Crumble to dust above their graves. 



65 



OUR PRAYER TO-DAY. 

Memorial Address at Saugertzes. 

Our prayer to-day is that these scenes may 
not be re-enacted. Some years ago on one of our 
River steamboats an old gentleman remarked, 
as we were passing under Kosciusko's monument, 
"It has been fifty years since I have seen the 
Hudson River. In the year 1839 I graduated 
at West Point." He said, " I live in Tennessee, 
and I felt it my duty to fight on the side of the 
South. One day, near New Orleans, I was posted 
behind some cotton bales as a breastwork, firing 
at a Union ship." He told me that his son had 
graduated from the Naval Academy, and that 
the son fought under the stars and stripes. He 
said, " Many times that day I touched the cannon 
66 



OUR PRAYER TO-DAY. 

which sent havoc into that vessel, and finally, at 
night-fall, after the battle was over, I received a 
message that my son was lying dead upon its 
deck;" and he added: "I always thought, and I 
feel to-day, that it was my own hand that sent 
my son into eternity." Then, with tears flowing 
down his cheeks, he exclaimed: "My friend, never 
fire at the stars and stripes, and never forget your 
country." 

I see some here who know pages of this bitter 
history by heart; some to whom this day is not 
an idle form ; some who dropped tears with the 
flowers that they placed upon their comrades' 
graves; some who in the long nights have out- 
watched the stars; some who have heard the 
roll-call of names which knew no response save 
the sobs of some distant fire -side. I see men 
here who were in the fire of battle and looked 
death in the face, with calm heroism, where 
leaden dice seemed hurled by the hand of fate — 

67 



OUR PRAYER TO-DAY. 

men such as Cromwell spoke of — men who could 
think with their bayonets, and more than that, 
men who could pray, and there are no words 
that can add any glory or any tribute to what 
they have done. 

I stood but yesterday before another assem- 
blage like this. I saw similar flags to these which 
are about me now — flags all faded and fretted 
out, with the names of Gettysburg and Antietam 
upon them, and the long roll of battlefields that 
we know by heart ; and I saw that the stripes 
had all been worn away and only the stars were 
left, and I felt that the flags symbohzed the long 
struggle and the grand result. 



68 



" VETERANS." 

Re-union of the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth 

Regiment New York State Volunteers 

at Hudson. 

Dedicated to the memory of Col. Cowles. 

One word on our lips, and but one to-day; 

One word in our hearts as we gather here, 
Enshrined in our annals to live for aye, 

To freedom and freemen forever dear. 

But how shall we utter with reverence meet 
That word where emotions are more than speech, 

When martyred heroes comrades greet, 

And voices from Heaven's high ramparts reach! 

69 



'' veterans:' 

Go, speak it in whispers where daisies free 
On a million mounds with dews are wet! 

Herald with trumpet from sea to sea 
The word that a nation will not forget! 

Attune it to music that thrills the soul 
With old-time fervor remembered yet! 

The smoke-stained banner again unroll! 
The stars in their courses will not forget. 

Engrave it in marble of purest white; 

In granite columns its letters set; 
Ay, trace it with pencils of living light 

The blue-domed heavens will not forget. 

These walls proclaim it in glory; behold! 

A loyal welcome to noble sons; 
Through floral lips to brothers bold 

One word, and that word — "Veterans." 
70 



'' veterans:' 

We bow before it; our all is there — 

Our flag, our freedom, our land and pride, 

Our country's fame and promise fair — 

The . world's great future with outlook wide. 

For that banner is more than painted gauze; 

It voices the hopes of a thousand years — 
A registered charter of sacred laws, 

Full covenant purchased by blood and tears. 

You know its value, siu-vivors few — 

Three hundred now of a thousand then. 

Who marched from our camp in proud review; 
The star-dotted roll-call read again. 

Absent ! Sleeping at Camp Parapet, 
On Chalmette field and at Quarantine, 

With salt-driven spray the roster is wet, 
At Port Hudson's dismal and wild ravine — 

7^ 



''VETERANSr 

Where brave men spoke with bated breath, 
As brothers fell in that murderous blast; 

While fate shook leaden dice with death, 
And cheeks grew pale as the die was cast. 

A black steed dashes across the plain, 
With foam-flecked bridle streaming free, 

A gallant and noble soldier slain, 

Your leader through centuries yet to be. 

Who, fighting, "fell with face to the foe," 
And sent it a message to sorrowing souls — 

Imperial sentence ! with Spartan glow. 

On record immortal — our brave Colonel Cowles. 

Ah, well we recall the silent street. 

When that horse was led to the hero's grave. 
With army-cloak on saddle-seat, 

And the flag that he gave his life to save. 

72 



^.^ VETERANS." ' 

And well we remember your record, boys, 

In the years that followed when days were dark, 

As through the Red Sea with steady poise 
Our citizen soldiers bore Liberty's ark. 

And children's children your deeds will relate, 
And cherish your memories ever dear. 

The gallant One Hundred and Twenty-eight, 
Which in days of peril answered — ^' Here ! " 

Ay, long as the stately Hudson flows. 
Or the Catskills sentinel-duty keep, 

While Roeleffe Jansen singing goes, 

And binds our counties in crystal sweep; 

Till the fame of our fathers has faded away, 
Till the stars of the old dear banner set. 

Till the gold of the sunHght is sprinkled with gray — 
Columbia and Dutchess will not forget, 

73 



PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE. 

Before address in the old Tweddle Hall, Albany. 

The " Catamount Tavern " is lively to-night, 
The boys of Vermont and New Hampshire are 
here, 

All drawn up in line in the lingering light, 

To greet Parson Allen with shout and with cheer. 

Over mountain and valley, from Pittsfield Green, 
Through the driving rain of that August day, 

The "Flock" marched on with martial mien. 
And the Parson rode in his "one-horse shay." 

" Three cheers for old Berkshire ! " the General said, 
As the boys of New England drew up face to face. 

" Baum bids us a breakfast to-morrow to spread. 
And the Parson is here to say us the ' grace.' " 

74 



PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE, 

" The lads who are with me have come here to fight, 
And we know of no grace," was the Parson's reply, 

" Save the name of Jehovah, our country and right, 
Which your own Ethan Allen pronounced at 
Fort Ti." 

" To-morrow," said Stark, " there'll be fighting to do. 
If you think you can wait for the morning light \ 

And, Parson, I'll conquer the British with you. 
Or Molly Stark sleeps a widow at night." 

What the Parson dreamed in that Bennington camp 
Neither Yankee nor Prophet would dare to guess ; 

A vision, perhaps, of the King David stamp. 

With a mixture of Cromwell and good Queen Bess. 

But we know the result of that glorious day. 
And the victory won ere the night came down; 

How Warner charged in the bitter fray 
With Rossiter, Hobart, and old John Brown ! 

75 



PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE. 

And how, in a lull of the three -hours' fight, 
The Parson harangued the Tory hne 

As he stood on a stump, with his musket bright, 
And sprinkled his texts with the powder fine: 

" The sword of the Lord is our battle cry, 
A refuge sure in the hour of need," 

And freedom and faith can never die 
Is article first of the Puritan creed. 

" Perhaps the ' occasion ' was rather rash," 
He remarked to his comrades after the rout; 

" For behind a bush I saw a flash. 
But I fired that way and put it out." 

And many the sayings, eccentric and queer, 
Repeated and sung through the whole country- 
side, 

And quoted in Berkshire for many a year. 
Of the Pittsfield march and the Parson's ride. 

76 



PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE. 

All honor to Stark and his resolute men, 

To the Green Mountain Boys all honor and 
praise, 

While with shout and with cheer we welcome again 
The Parson who rode in his one-horse chaise. 



77 



THE COURSE OF FREEDOM. 

Peroration of Address on '■'■The Hudson" 
Delivered at Troy. 

How the sublime and beautiful in the material 
world are interwoven with the political and moral 
development of a people ! We can not live in the 
midst of majestic scenery without feeling its in- 
spiration in our hearts, inciting us to something 
nobler and better. 

It is impossible to be slaves where all nature 
speaks of liberty. In tracing the progress of 
freedom from the time when the Reformation 
electrified Europe, we see her first footsteps, like 
the approach of morning, upon the mountains and 
along the banks of rivers ! 

We see her light illumine the clear streams 
of Switzerland, we hear her voice from mountain - 
walled Geneva ; till almost exiled from Europe, she 

78 



THE COURSE OF FREEDOM. 

takes up the words of Knox, " Give me Scotland 
or I die;" and in the deep fastnesses of her hills, 
and in the deeper hearts of a people who drank 
in liberty with the very air they breathed, awaited 
patiently the hour of proclaiming to the world the 
right of private judgment, both in religion and 
in politics; ever teaching that noble sentiment of 
loyalty to conviction, which led Charles the First 
through the windows of Whitehall upon the scaf- 
fold, and banished the House of Stuart from the 
Throne of England. 

She crosses the ocean and lays here the founda- 
tion of a Republic, where civil and religious govern- 
ment becomes civil and reHgious liberty, and the 
Divine Right of Kings becomes the Divine Rights 
of Men. And here along our fair rivers a nobler 
Freedom shall ever flourish, and along this the 
fairest stream will gather Poetry from its Legends, 
Hope from its History, and a Consciousness of 
God from its Beauty. 

79 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

Eighteenth Reum'on of the Society of the Army of the 
Potomac at Saratoga Springs, 



[After the Army of the Potomac had returned from the capture 
of Richmond to Alexandria, a single company, each man with 
a lighted candle in his gun, marched one night throughout the 
camps in sportive procession. Regiments and brigades caught 
the spirit, until fifty thousand candles were immediately con- 
verted into weird-like battalions wheeling and dancing along 
the hillsides in every direction.] 



Once again Potomac's army answers to the mus- 
ter-roll; 

Once again the old-time music thrills the soldier's 
heart and soul. 

Rank on rank, with cheer and gladness, rally at 
the bugle -call 

On the field of Saratoga, underneath its mountain- 
wall, 

80 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

Where MacGregor's evening shadows fall upon the 

crystal tide, 
At the gate -way of the cottage where the nation's 

hero died; 
Where the streams in gentle music still our father's 

requiem chant, 
And the pine, the oak, the maple, and the laurel 

echo — Grant. 



Name revered, that clasps great rivers evermore in 

loving thrall : 
Queenly Hudson, fair Potomac, Mississippi — king 

of all; 
Rivers three, that bind one nation from the Gulf 

to Northern lakes. 
From the Rockies to Virginia, where the loud 

Atlantic breaks; 
Arms entwined and interlocking, holding in their 

wide embrace 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

Sweeping hills and lordly mountains of the Ap- 
palachian race; 

Fertile fields and rolling prairies with their wealth 
of floral bloom, 

Plucked and borne by loving fingers to the loyal 
Logan's tomb. 



Fruit of gold in silver pictures — waving fields by 
rivers framed; 

States discordant reunited, love and land and flag 
reclaimed : 

Fruit of gold — a century's harvest, in war's reap- 
ing rudely shorn — 

Garnered heroes, named and nameless, swift on 
fiery chariots borne. 

Rest in peace by stately rivers, martyred soldiers 
of the free ! 

Rest, brave captain, at our threshold, where the 
Hudson meets the sea! 
82 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

While Mount Vernon's sacred portal sentinels 

Potomac's waves, 
Mississippi sends her greetings to the streams that 

guard their graves. 



Fair Potomac ! dear Potomac ! at thy name what 

memories throng! 
Deeds of heroism blazoned in a nation's art and 

song. 
Onward sweeps the steady column to the sound 

of fife and drum; 
Solid phalanx, proud battalion; see the sun- 
browned veterans come. 
Forward, to the touch of elbow, as of old in 

long review: 
Missing comrades take their places in the ranks ^ 

that wear the blue. 
''On to Richmond!" "On to Richmond!" swells 

the old familiar cry. 

83 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

On this line " — you know the context ^comes 
the soldier's brief reply. 



Southward now, with ranks concentring, reads the 

order of the day, 
Wilderness and Spottsylvania marking halts along 

the way, 
Where the trees are mowed with bullets — ^brothers 

battling hand to hand — 
Blue and Gray, with kindred courage worthy of 

one fatherland; 
Both ahke in silent trenches guarding now the 

peaceful scene. 
Waiting till the mom's reveille wakes the camps 

of waving green. 
Southward still across North Anna, thirty miles 

from Rapidan ; 
Southward, by the left flank marching, gallant 

Hancock in the van. 

84 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

How each message, fraught with glory, taught a 
Hstening land the names 

Of the Old Dominion rivers, from Potomac to 
the James! 

How you kept the '' Dailies " busy with their to- 
pographic maps — 

One eye on the Shenandoah, one on Sherman's 
shoulder - straps ! 

Sheridan in rapid orbit, like a genuine son of 
Mars, 

Sherman on the outer circle, Saturn -like among 
the stars; 

Here and there a warlike comet — dauntless Cus- 
ter, dashing " Kil; " 

But they had to " get up Early " to compete 
with "Little Phil." 



Who can paint that panorama, clear and perfect 
in detail? 

85 



THE CANDLE PARADE, 

Who can trace the telHng bullets in that storm 

of leaden hail ? 
Who can twine a fitting garland for each dear 

heroic name, 
Or untwist the strands of glory in the cable of 

our fame? 
This sufficeth and abideth — every thread is firm 

and true; 
Homespun texture, double woven, colors fast — 

red, white, and blue; 
Knotted well at Appomattox, tied to keep the 

threads in place. 
Never more to be unravelled in the nation's on- 
ward race. 



Homeward now with flaunting banners, every 
heart with triumph thrills; 

Homeward to the old-time quarters on the Al- 
exandria hills. 

86 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

Once again a thousand camp-fires on the wide 

horizon glow; 
Once again the canvas city spreads its tents of 

drifted snow; 
All the long, fierce conflict over, day of Jubilee 

is here; 
No more longing, no more waiting — give us, 

boys, a song of cheer. 
Hail the bright - illumined city, with its crowning 

dome of white ! 
Hail Columbia! hail Potomac! All the land is 

free to - night ! 



What is that along the hill - side ? See a hundred 

twinkling points 
Starting up and ghding slowly, serpent -like with 

glittering joints. 
Mark the sweeping curves of beauty as in waving 

lines it breaks, 

87 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

Holding all the wide encampment in its folds of 
fiery flakes — 

Solid squares and ranks of twinkle putting phan- 
tasy to shame; 

Phosphorous billows in the darkness gemmed with 
drifting dots of flame; 

Ghostly folds of sable serge -cloth trimmed with 
glittering golden braid; 

Spirit -Hghts of weird battalions dancing all in 
masquerade. 



You remember well the sombre silence of that 

vision vast; 
As a background for the pageant, all the sky was 

overcast. 
Then upon the stillness breaking came the old 

familiar airs, 
Choral links of home and camp-fire treasured in 

a nation's prayers — 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

" Home, Sweet Home " and " John Brown's Body," 

"Dixie -Land" and " Old Camp - ground," . 
Swinging symphonies commingled in one bright 

bouquet of sound. 
Then from out the ruddy petals "Forward!" 

came the order shrill, 
And the visioned scene was mortal — 'twas the 

famous candle - drill. 



No one knew just how it started, how that 
strange parade began, 

Emblem of the nation's genius and the individual 
man; 

Waiting not Heutenant's order, epaulette or crim- 
son sash, 

Blending in the ready impulse Saxon grit and 
Gaelic dash. 

Here, perhaps, a lighted candle in a musket, 
just for play, 

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THE CANDLE PARADE. 

Then a score, platoon, battalion — all the scene is 

under way, 
And the chorus, proudly swelling, stirs the heart 

of every corps, 
"We are coming, Father Abram, fifty thousand 

candles more." 



We are coming, we are coming, as of old the 

army came — 
" Wide Awakes " and " Little Giants," in one 

lava stream of flame. 
Knowing but one common duty when the banner 

was defied, 
Stirred in every nerve and fibre when the gallant 

Ellsworth died. 
Steadfast Lincoln, Douglas greets you with his 

followers tried and true: 
"Keep for aye the nation's honor, all the stars 

within the blue." 

90 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

Noble hero ! generous rival ! both, alas, too soon 

to fall. 
Lincoln ! still the Douglas greets you, '' Dinna 

ye hear the slogan call ? " 



Not more quickly sprang that pageant from the 

silence of the night 
Than the army of the people panoplied in free- 
dom's might; 
Not more swiftly Concord's message flashed from 

Boston's Old South spire; 
Not more speedily the answer to Clan Alpine's 

Cross of Fire ; 
Not more ready Roderick's followers springing at 

the whistle shrill, 
Than the loyal yeoman soldiers starting up from 

plain and hill. 
Not more quickly Highland claymore^ sank in 

copse and heathered glen 

91 



THE CANDLE PARADE. 

Than the grand old army veterans back into the 
land again. 



*' One from many," reads our motto, wider, 

deeper than before — 
Not of states but individuals — " We, the people," 

evermore ! 
Tell me not of servile soldiers who for king or 

sovereign died, 
Here a million kings and sovereigns marched to 

victory side by side; 
Brothers all in sacred compact, file and captain 

equal born ; 
Comrade answering to comrade, waiting for the 

promised mom. 
Far and wide each gleaming taper, "hke a good 

deed," shines abroad, 
Till the flaming heights of freedom manifest the 

will of God. 

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THE CANDLE PARADE. 

But the hill -side's fading beauty tells us the 

parade is o'er, 
Like the embers of the camp-fire dying out for- 

evermore. 
Only now in distant windows gleams the candle 

through the night, 
And the camp-fires change to firesides, with their 

cheery visions bright 
Streaming out into the darkness past the lane 

and wicket -gate, 
Where the mother, wife, and sister, all the loved 

and loving, wait. 
Glorious land to live or die for! Let Columbia 

bend her knee 
As she grants her proudest honors to the soldiers 

of the free. 



93 



THE SILENT SOLDIER. 

At Mount MacGregor. 



[When Grant was dying, a ray of sunlight through the half- 
closed shutters of his room fell upon Lincoln's picture, leaving 
the General's portrait, which hung beside it, in deep shadow. 
After lingering for a moment upon the brow of the martyred 
President, it passed, at the instant of death, and played upon 
the portrait of the great General.] 



From gulf to lake, from sea to sea, 
The land is draped — a nation weeps; 

And o'er the bier bows reverently. 
Whereon the silent soldier sleeps. 

The hill-top silhouetted in hght 

Salutes the east with outlook wide — 

Its name shall live in memory bright — 
The Mount MacGregor, where he died. 

94 



) 



THE SILENT SOLDIER. 

A monument to stand for aye, 

In summer's bloom, in winter's snows; 

A shrine where men shall come to pray, 
While at its base the Hudson flows. 

A humble room, the light burns low; 

The morning breaks on distant hill; 
The faihng pulse is beating slow; 

The group is motionless and still. 

Two portraits hang upon the wall. 
Two kindred pictures side by side — 

Statesman and soldier, loved by all — 
Lincoln and Grant, Columbia's pride. 

A single ray through lattice streams, 
And breaks in rainbow colors there; 

On Lincoln's brow a glory gleams 
As wife and children kneel in prayer. 

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THE SILENT SOLDIER. 

A halo round the martyr's head, 
It Hghts the sad and solemn room; 

Above the living and the dead 

The soldier's portrait hangs in gloom — 

In shadow one, and one in light: 
But look! the pencil-ray has passed, 

And on the hero's pictiure bright 
The golden sunlight rests at last. 

And so, throughout the coming years, 
On both the morning beam shall play. 

When the long night of bitter tears 
Has melted in the light away. 



96 



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